Take these 10 steps to quadruple your inbound leads

If you’re all about keeping your business running, then it’s important that you keep your inbound leads coming in. You’re likely to be in an environment that constantly offers high levels of competition and it’s paramount that you stay afloat. How do you do that? Leads, of course!

As a marketer, most of your time is probably going to be spent finding leads. Not just any leads, though; qualified inbound leads: people who are likely to buy your things from the start. The whole idea of inbound marketing came from this need.

Hubspot simplified inbound marketing into 4 major steps: Attract, Convert, Close, Delight. The whole essence of that process is to take your potential customer through a funnel where they go from being strangers to visitors to inbound leads to customers to promoters. The marketing nirvana that we all aspire to is the point where our own customers are our greatest customers. Can you get there? Of course, you can!

This is actually all easier said than done. Having the broad strokes of the general idea is one thing; nitty-gritty gritty details drawn out into a step by step plan is something else entirely. That’s what we’re here for today. We’re going to give you 10 actionable steps to help you quadruple those inbound leads and get that business into lift-off!

1. First Base is always Website Design

If your business had headquarters, then your website would be the reception. This is what your customers interact with first a lot of the time when they show interest in your company. Therefore, it goes without saying that you need to have a killer website up and running.

For starters, make sure your website loads fast enough. Not only will visitors get bored quickly and bounce off of your site if your pages are taking ages to load, but Google will also penalize you with a lower ranking, which translates to lower traffic. Traffic and revenue are directly correlated so try to get as much traffic to your site as possible to boost your inbound leads and, ultimately, your revenue. You can also incorporate live chat features into your site so your visitors can have their questions answered in real time.

2. SEO will give you that extra push

Once you’ve got your website up and running, the next thing is to tighten up your SEO. You want to be on the first page of Google’s SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) and there’s no shortcut to this. Some of the things you’ll have to work on are listed below:

URL

Page Title

Image Tags

Headers

Having your HTML file formatted the right way so Google has an easy time parsing it is absolutely crucial to your success. Being on the first page is worlds apart from being on page 2 in terms of the traffic you get. In fact, there is an even larger difference in traffic between a top 4 page and one that tends to appear at the bottom of the first page of results. Good SEO can work wonders, so don’t ignore it.

3. Produce Quality Content

So your page is right in front of your visitors and your website layout is fantastic. What next? Now you have to actually give them what they probably came looking for: content. Quality content is all about being original, engaging, and relevant. If you give readers what they want, when they want it, and in whatever form they want, they will stay on your pages longer and are more likely to come back to see what more you have to offer.

4. Use Social Media to create a community for your customers

The power of social media cannot be overstated. Sites like Facebook give you the power to be very specific with your targeting so you get your ads through to the people who are most likely to derive value from them. At first, likes, followers, and shares will be nothing more than that. But over time, they will translate to new inbound leads, customers and increased revenue.

5. Engage your users wherever they are

Apart from using social media for your ad campaigns, you should also use it to engage with your users in real time. Find out what questions they’re asking, where they hang out most frequently, who influences their purchasing decisions, and any other relevant information. More often than not, such information will give you gold nuggets of wisdom on how to approach them and convert them into leads.

6. Tap into the power of video content

With a majority of the population being visual learners, it is a surprise that more sites aren’t incorporating videos into their content. Not only are videos going to make your content more appealing to digest for your readers, but they will also drastically reduce the amount of time within which they absorb the content, offering them a convenience they will surely appreciate.

7. Have a killer Call to Action

The Call to Action or CTA is what nudges the potential lead into the next stage of the funnel and turns them into a fully-fledged lead. Without a proper CTA, you won’t see many conversions, despite having done everything right so far. Think of all the major online services you signed up for without a second thought: Netflix, Spotify, etc. All of them can be seen to have killer CTAs that make you just want to dive right in. Focus on the same with your CTAs and you’re good to go! Here are some useful pointers for when you’re designing your CTA:

Use more images than text

Use colors that contrast with your normal color scheme

Your CTA should be simple and to the point

Your CTA should be crafted around your particular audience, rephrasing your aim in a language the audience is likely to respond to

8. Email Marketing is your friend

Email marketing, despite all the bad rep it’s been getting, is still pretty useful for generating and cultivating your inbound leads. The key is to remember not to spam your users. Offer them value and education. Give them information that they find both useful and relevant and they will never get bored with you.

9. Google AdWords

Pay per click advertising works, as counterintuitive as it sounds. Many of you may have never clicked on an ad on Google search engine results page. But those ad clicks earn Google north of $100 million per day! The beauty of it all is that you only need to pay once someone actually clicks on your ad. Otherwise it costs you absolutely nothing. As long as you have a well-designed website landing page that produces leads who you can cultivate with inbound marketing, you’re good to go!

10. Build your Backlinks

We spoke about SEO previously, but most of it had to do with what you can implement on the page. There’s also a lot you can do off the page to boost your website’s ranking and your domain authority. Getting other websites to link back to you is the most powerful here. Make sure the pages linking back to you are high authority pages themselves and you will see a great boost in your rankings, which will lead to a great boost in traffic.

Wrapping Up

Inbound marketing works. It all boils down to how you implement it. The tips above will help you see a rise in your inbound leads and, eventually, a rise in your revenue. The most important thing, however, is to keep up the creativity. Digital marketing is one area where you should never stop experimenting. Happy marketing!